Monthly Archives: July 2014

Yup, the Chess Olympiad is getting closer and on Wednesday and Thursday it was quite interesting and amusing to see the tweets of the teams travelling to Tromsø. It seems that not everybody had a smooth journey, though:

@GMHikaru: It would be nice if chess organizers could hold an event in a city with many flights and a major airport in the case of delays/cancellations.

The next Olympiad 2016 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan and Batumi, Georgia is one of the candidates for 2018. Tough travels ahead for Hikaru Nakamura, I am afraid!

Mig Greengard , Kasparov’s aide-de-camp, has arrived and has some good advice: @chessninja: “Warning to first-time visitors to Tromsø: If you don’t put the line through the “ø” you’ll be sent to a Scandinavian reeducation camp.”

Could be a strong candidate for the “Best tweet of the Olympiad” challenge….I was surprised to see in his profile that he is one of the official photographers for the Olympiad. It seems that he is very well prepared…

The challenger seems to be ready for the elections, but what about the FIDE president? @chess24.com reports: “FIDE elections heating up – Ilyumzhinov ready to fight back with some personalised calendars!”

@pookita: “Isn’t he a complete patzer at chess??”

The Russian girls arrived as well: @Kosteniuk posted this nice picture. You may recognize Anatoli Karpov, Sergey Karjakin (not wearing his infamous pro Putin T-shirt that cost him an invitation to the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis) and Andrey Filatov in the second row. They travelled with a private plane. Maybe an idea for Hikaru Nakamura?

Did I mention Magnus Carlsen already? I am afraid that there will be some tough weeks ahead for the world champion. Every step he makes will be watched by paparazzi , e.g. @GMJanGustafsson: “Spotted some Carlsen’s!”

@Crsieh: “Magnus Carlsen on the local news, Nordnytt. One of the volunteers: “He has such pretty brown eyes!”

@TarjeiJS: “The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation have more than 50 (!) people working on covering #ChessOlympiad“. @MariaMindfold: “Norwegians. Magnus-craze as usual :)” He/she tweeted later: “Yes, I`m gonna be totally STAR-STRUCK if I spot Hou Yifan at the #ChessOlympiad ! absolutely not kidding.”

Yes, Chess in Tweets is back. Earlier this year I followed the Candidates Tournament in Khanty Mansiysk by compiling a storyline around the games by using tweets about the event. I will follow the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø in the same way: I will try to filter the most relevant tweets about the Olympiad in Norway and create a story. The good thing for you, the reader is that you only need to read this blog to get the best tweets, even if you do not use Twitter yourself. The bad thing is that I have to read a lot of crap.

Fourth largest sporting event?

On the official event website of the Olympiad 2014 you can read: “Chess Olympiad Tromsø 2014 – the world’s fourth largest sporting event”. In the “fact and figures” section of the info bulletin I found that this is measured by the number of participating countries (174). If you want to take this as reference, fine. You can also read in the booklet that the estimated online audience is 100 Million.

If you google “the largest sporting events”, the Chess Olympiad is not mentioned in the top 10. Of course, “fourth largest sporting event” sounds great. Some people might even believe it. It is just a matter of interpretation.

I do expect a lot of tweets about the Olympiad, because many top players will not only play but also tweet. There are not only many players in Tromsø, but also journalists, officials, trainers, coaches, commentators, organizers and visitors who will not only tweet about the games. It will also be interesting to see what wil be tweeted about the playing conditions, the parties, the food and the prices in the shops. And Carlsen.

Twitpics

I will use twitpics from the tweeps. I found a nice one by @teotstorb, who writes: “I was wondering what is exactly a troll. But I found a lot in Tromso!”

@fischerandom: “My Norwegian sister grew up in Tromsø! The nature is very beautiful there!”

That is right, and what about the stories of the midnight sun?

@chess24.com: “Can confirm that the midnight sun (or at least daylight!) in Tromso isn’t a myth…”

To get the best storyline it is essential that the tweeps use the same hashtag. I think #ChessOlympiad makes sense. One of the commentators, Lawrence Trent, uses the correct hashtag:

@LawrenceTrentIM:“Prepping up for the big one! #ChessOlympiad Will be commentating every round of this very special event, leave for Tromso tomorrow!”

Politics

We should not forget chess politics, a major item in the next weeks. Many tweets have already been posted about the upcoming slugfest. Just to give you an idea of the friendly tone of the tweets in this matter, here is an sneak peek:

Nigel Short wrote an article for New in Chess about the upcoming FIDE elections, titled: “Tyranny”. Not everybody like the piece, obviously….

@alinihatyazici:“I Read 1st paragraph of @nigelshortchess bullshit in NIC! Impotence may make a person life time jealous for power!”

Short replied: @nigelshortchess:“The foul public language of @alinihatyazici shows he is totally unfit to head @Fide_chess in schools.”

@alinihatyazici:“@nigelshortchess was accusing me for foul language, that is a growing manner, need hot pepper in mouth!”

@nigelshortchess: “@alinihatyazici has to shout “bullshit”, rather than make reasoned argument, because he knows what I have said is true”

Creative tweet here about the FIDE president:

@olimpiuurcan:“The more I read about Ilyumzhinov the more I think of Borat, L. Ron Hubbard, Donald Trump and Saparmurat Niyazov. All-into-one.”